Friday 27 November, M Shed Bristol

Something that unites and affects all museums is place. Some museums are sited where they are to help tell the story of the place they are in, occupying the sites of former works or heritage buildings. Others are designed to tell our stories to the people in and around the place they are in, such as many of our cherished local museums. In doing so they often tell the stories of that community, and offer the chance to foster a sense of belonging and see our society reflected to us. This can often be vital in areas where the safe space of the museum place allows a break from the outside world, a chance to connect with each other. Our museums can act as spaces for interactions with the collections, society and each other. 

Yet digital has vastly affected our sense of space, and naturally that means museums as well. In our lives we are frequently involved in communities no longer bounded by place: a quick look at where your Instagram friends actually are in the world is a good example. What does this mean for museums, both for themselves and the stories they tell? How has the intersection of digital into the museum space changed our interactions?

How does this affect ‘who’ the visitor is, their demographics and what a meaningful ‘museum visit’ or interaction is? Is there such a thing as a ‘digital only visitor’ and what weight does that carry for a museum? What about the museum itself, can this be truly removed from the physical space?

As that interaction between people and the museum reflects our digital era, what about authenticity? Screens are ubiquitous, do museums offer a break from staring at them? Can digital enhance the authenticity of the experience? Does the wealth of extra potential data available for an item on display enhance our connection with it? Where can we create new authentic connections? How are we pushing the boundaries of what an interaction is? Is it looking, touching, talking or something else? 

The MCG’s Museums+Tech 2026 conference seeks proposals for presentations addressing these issues. It’s time to celebrate good work, and share ideas for helping museums and other cultural institutions do better. We’re open to suggestions, and here are some thoughts:

The three key themes are:

• Place: Where the museum is and the space it contains, and how digital connects with that
• Authenticity: The sector’s role in digital authenticity, as an experience and source of trust.
• Interaction: How audiences interact with the museum, the collection and each other.

Areas we might be looking to stimulate conversation around:

• Reflecting the character of the museum’s place (both locally and nationally)
• Museum communities connected digitally
• Changing ‘who’ the visitor is – different demographics, digital only visitors, the journey between digital and physical visits?
• The idea of the digital museum
• Digital detox and ‘getting away from the screen’: are there new methods of enhancing interactions with collections, less intrusive technology or even should museums provide a break from technology?
• What interaction can be had at a museum and not elsewhere?
• People-centred practice in the field of digital for culture
• How and where can interactions with museums be experimented with, played with, have the boundaries pushed?
• How digital technologies can help or hinder access for people

The MCG’s annual conference attracts speakers and participants from some of the most innovative cultural organisations, agencies and university programmes in the world. We’re keen to hear from practitioners, researchers, funders, and those from related cultural heritage and technology sectors. All submitted papers will be reviewed by experts in the field.

Presentations

This year the conference will be at MShed in Bristol and streamed online. The programme will include:

• Full presentations (15 minutes + Q&A) are a great way to share the main learning points from a topic or project
• Lightning talks (7 minutes + Q&A) are best for sharing useful ideas that others in the sector can try, or to present a provocation

Please note that we may group these presentations into panels with a discussion component.

If you would like to present but are unable to attend in person, we will have up to two slots available for remote speakers. Please select this option when submitting your proposal. To help the event run smoothly we may ask you to pre-record your presentation and be available for live q&a.

Our audiences love our mixture of old and new voices, and we have a great track record in presenting a diverse range of speakers. Please also read our Guidance for Speakers before submitting your proposal. Our events have a code of conduct designed to help everyone enjoy the event.

Submission details

Proposals will need to note preferred format and include: 

• a title and brief abstract (250 words max)
• a biography (150 words max) for the presenting author
• a brief (150 words max) non-technical summary of what attendees will learn from the presentation
• a brief (150 words max) explanation of how the paper relates to the conference themes

We will also ask whether the paper or project has been presented at any previous conferences, and we encourage potential speakers to share links to their videos, slides, blogs etc to help us get a sense of their presentation style.

Proposals deadline

Submit your proposal here:

https://app.oxfordabstracts.com/stages/82581/submitter 

The deadline for proposals is 23:59 (UK time) on Monday 29th June. If you have any questions about submitting a proposal, please contact us at contact@museumscomputergroup.org.uk.

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Friday 5th December 2025, Think Tank Birmingham

In many ways it is a golden time for digital creativity. Thanks to many tools we are able to process more data than ever and create images and videos that are of a vastly higher quality than even a few years ago. All this is at a time when the tools to make them are currently very ‘cheap’ or even ‘free’ to use. Increasingly our online experiences are also federated through a series of algorithms: Google, Meta, TikTok. Our digital landscape is rapidly changing.

Yet behind this as a sector we may have concerns. The output may look fantastic, but is it accurate? Are there biases going into the output which are shaping opinion? Is it properly representative? Has the source data been used with consent? What are the legalities of the software and the output? Who owns it? What about the impact on the planet? What are the changes it represents to society and our attitude towards what is created? When is synthetic data being useful, and when not?

How do museums – whose role in society is surely apolitical and concerned with bringing together diverse viewpoints around shared aspects of our material culture and human condition – navigate these biases inherent in communicating with audiences online? How are we ‘seizing the tech’ for social good? What can we do as a sector to better meet the challenges posed by AI, algorithmic bias and misinformation? We’re looking both for stories of hope – how museums on a small scale are putting social purpose at the heart of digital Comms but also papers examining the complexity of the issues we face. How do you think this will shape museums in the future?

Our theme this year also has a focus on ‘seizing the tech’ in a practical sense for the Museum Computer Group community. We’re particularly interested in talks that offer practical action, and can inspire and enable each delegate in our work. That could be team leads at national institutions, through to individuals at small local museums. We want to use technology as a leveller, and really focus on what we can do for visitors. 

We want to stimulate reasoned debate, as with the mailing list, we are all a community here to discuss and build consensus. We are interested in talks which help our community members take a leading place in all aspects of our evolving digital world.

The MCG’s Museums+Tech 2025 conference seeks proposals for presentations addressing these issues. It’s time to celebrate good work, and share ideas for helping museums and other cultural institutions do better. We’re open to suggestions, and here’s some thoughts:

• Use of Wikipedia and crowd sourced responses to data collection
• New situations that have emerged due to recent technology. What happened? What was the response?
• How tech stacks are changing at museums.
• Sensible adoption of AI in the context of an overarching policy
• Achievements in harnessing new tools (both to help you, or to deliver new work)
• Using social to achieve engagement and audience growth and navigating the biases within that
• Guides and advice for your peers based on your experiences
• Role of the website in a shifting landscape and overarching audience policy
• How internal teams and governance structures are shifting to more comprehensively meet these challenges 

The MCG’s annual conference attracts speakers and participants from some of the most innovative cultural organisations, agencies and university programmes in the world. We’re keen to hear from practitioners, researchers, funders, and those from related cultural heritage and technology sectors. All submitted papers will be reviewed by experts in the field.

Presentations

This year, the conference will again be at Think Tank in Birmingham, and streamed online. The programme will include:

• Full presentations (15 minutes + Q&A) are a great way to share the main learning points from a topic or project
• Lightning talks (7 minutes + Q&A) are best for sharing useful ideas that others in the sector can try, or to present a provocation

Please note that we may group these presentations into panels with a discussion component.

If you would like to present but are unable to attend in person, we will have up to two slots available for remote speakers. Please select this option when submitting your proposal. To help the event run smoothly we may ask you to pre-record your presentation and be available for live q&a.

Our audiences love our mixture of old and new voices, and we have a great track record in presenting a diverse range of speakers. Please also read our Guidance for Speakers before submitting your proposal. Our events have a code of conduct designed to help everyone enjoy the event.

Submission details

Proposals will need to note preferred format and include: 

• a title and brief abstract (250 words max)
• a biography (150 words max) for the presenting author
• a brief (150 words max) non-technical summary of what attendees will learn from the presentation
• a brief (150 words max) explanation of how the paper relates to the conference themes

We will also ask whether the paper or project has been presented at any previous conferences, and we encourage potential speakers to share links to their videos, slides, blogs etc to help us get a sense of their presentation style.

Proposals

Submit your proposal

The deadline for proposals is 23:59 (UK time) on Monday 23rd June 2025. If you have any questions about submitting a proposal, please send us an email.

The post MCG Museums+Tech 2025 — Seize the Tech! appeared first on Museums Computer Group.

Who is this for? And why should they care?

Audience-centred work is something that is championed in our field, but isn’t every project for an audience? We have projects which can feel like they lack focus if the audience is ‘everyone’, or hyper-localised target audiences which may seem too niche. 

How do we know that the intended audience actually cares, and can actually show the value of the work? 

In the digital realm we have different ways of identifying audiences. Do those remote audiences who never visit compare to the physically visiting audience? Can we compare and measure their impact?

Do we change to suit changing audiences, or do we stay constant and bring audiences to us?

As Computer based practitioners, we also must be aware of the societal impact on technology. New tools and systems allow us to reach new audiences, but do we exclude others by our choices and requirements? 

Our conference theme this year sets out to directly allow us to discuss the idea of who our audiences are, and show how we make them value our museums. We are living in an interesting and difficult time as we must define and display our value, not just against competing audience interests but also internally to funding bodies. We want to hear how you are identifying audiences and connecting with them, and proving that success. Together we can share improve our sector.

Calls for proposals are now closed. Please visit the Programme information for ore information on this event

The post MCG Museums+Tech 2023 — Future-proofing the digital museum appeared first on Museums Computer Group.

Apologies for absence 

Minutes of the last AGM 

Minutes of the last AGM, December 2020 

Committee reports 

Committee reports were presented to the attendees. 

Chair’s report – Dafydd James 

Since COVID landed on us, we’ve not managed to meet face-to-face, which is a shame as it’s a part of the work that I really enjoy. That said, we are a committee with members across the UK, and are used to engaging with each other on video calls since long before the pandemic struck.

We have been meeting when possible, as an Exec, as team leads and as a full Committee. However it has not been easy to find a time for Committee meetings that fit around everyone’s commitments. Lockdown has, in many cases, increased the workload for our Committee members, which means we must be flexible enough to acknowledge the busy periods so that we can benefit from their excellent work and experience in the run up to key events and activities. 

The Committee’s different workstreams have changed a little this year, with new members changing the dynamic and getting their heads around some of the tasks done by our team of volunteers. There’s a considerable amount to learn, so I’m grateful to the new members for their efforts, as well as more established committee members for their ongoing guidance. 

This year’s event is our second online conference. We’re continuing to learn, not only about the new technologies used but also the kind of sessions that work differently online to a physical space. The hope is, in time, that we’ll be able to attend the conference in person – perhaps with an online stream for a hybrid conference. Like many people, we’re missing the opportunity to network and engage with people in our cultural spaces. 

I am grateful to our international programme committee for their time reviewing this year’s call for papers. 

And, I’d like to thank the committee this year. The new members have stepped up to take on their roles and responsibilities brilliantly. 

There’s a dedicated bunch of volunteers that are working hard to keep you connected, supported and inspired. 

Accounts – Georgina Brooke 

• This year our conference made £3,916.60
  • Corporate Membership accounts for £3,650.60 of this revenue, with £266 coming from individual tickets
  • Corporate Membership is made up of 1x £500 donation (Thirty 8 digital), 4 x unlimited (Pelagios, NMS, NMW, Fitz), 14 regular memberships
• This year our costs were £3,951.92 – the main expenses have been
  • 3 years worth of accountants fees at £1,152 (normally this would be £384p.a.)
  • Stagetext: £1,862
  • In a normal year our outgoings on this model would be £3,198.82
  • We made a small loss of £35.32 – however £500 is from Mike for something separate, so if we take that out we made a loss of £532.32
• Suggestion next year there is a corp membership secretary, this is where we broke even. Not sure it should be the treasurer’s job to plan, promote a means of breaking even
• Our balance post Muse Tech ‘21 is £11,992.15

Membership – Sarah Middle 

• 27 new individual members have registered since the 2020 AGM
• The total number of MCG members is 592

We have relaunched corporate membership for MuseTech21 and now have 19 corporate members:

• Accessible by Design
• Amgueddfa Cymru – National Museum Wales
• Bodlean Libraries Centre for Digital Scholarship
• The British Museum
• Collections Trust
• Culture24
• The Fitzwilliam Museum
• HUMAP
• Knowledge Integration
• Modes User Association
• National Museums Scotland
• OneFurther
• Pelagios Network
• Science Museum Group
• Substrakt
• Surface Impression
• Thirty8 Digital
• Un.titled
• Wellcome Collection

Operational reports 

Events – Sarah Cole 

The Museums+Tech 2020 conference was held online on Hopin across 9^th–10^th December and the theme was Museums in a crisis.

461 people registered to attend and we had a 81% turnout with a peak attendance of 194 people. Attendees rated the event 7/10 through the automated Hopin question. We tried a pay-what-you-can model that included a free ticket option. 

Information about that event may be found at:

Information about this event may be found at:

Communications – Alec Ward 

• Twitter remains our most popular social media platform, with 5,356 followers (increase of 138 followers on last year)

• We have also been using Facebook, this is predominantly to promote events
  • Our Facebook page currently sits at 1,128 followers – but this is an audience that we continue to build on each year

• We’ve been using LinkedIn a bit more in the past year, mostly to promote our events and share the list discussion topics
  • This is also an audience we hope to expand on in the coming year
• Finally, we continue to use the Discussion List to share events, news and opportunities
  • We also try to share these topics on Twitter to expand the discussions
• We continue to use Mailchimp to publicise our events and, occasionally, news

Website – Liz McCarthy

The MCG website (www.museumscomputergroup.org.uk) continues to operate as a home for events, reports and membership for the group.  

In the period November 2020 – October 2021, the website had:   

• 23,015 sessions (+137% on previous year)  
• 20,033 users (+ 132.5% on previous year)  
• 34,978 views (+124% on previous year)  

Improvements:

Accessibility Audit 

Accessibility Improvements

Menu Re-design

Technical fixes & improvements

Email list – Dafydd James 

The discussion list has been as busy as ever over 2021, with 1896 subscribers who work with and within the sector.

There have been lively discussions on the delivery of content and technology in our spaces and online, opportunities for training and career progression, funding and development, and accessibility and inclusion.

In terms of moderation, there has not been a need for flagging up many things, so thank you to the community for respecting our terms of use!

Questions from the floor 

None

Committee elections 

The following new committee members were confirmed:

• Graham Davies, National Museum Wales​
• Nick Higgett, De Montfort University​
• Mark Pajak, Bristol Culture​
• Russell Stearman, Joi Polloi​
• Foteini Valeonti, University College London

The post AGM 2021 appeared first on Museums Computer Group.

Museums and the ‘new’ normal

Friday 11 November, 2022

One Birdcage Walk, London

What does ‘digital’ mean to the museum of 2022? How have user needs changed and how have museums responded? What were the successes and failures from the digital interventions of 2020? We’ll be discussing this, and more, at this year’s conference.

2020 saw cultural heritage organisations produce a multitude of digital responses to events such as the Covid-19 pandemic, the Black Lives Matter movement, and the ongoing climate crisis.

Two years on, what is the legacy of these digital interventions? Has the disruption to visiting a physical space resulted in embedding long-term digital initiatives that have persisted following reopening, or have they been abandoned in a bid to recreate the ‘old normal’?

Our 2022 conference seeks to discuss the varying situations and strategies across institutions, sharing best practices for digital futures, telling cautionary tales, and situating digital cultural heritage within the wider political and financial landscape.

A full programme will be announced in the coming weeks. Until then, grab your early bird tickets before they sell out!

The post MCG Museums+Tech 2022 — Turning it off and on again appeared first on Museums Computer Group.

Update (31 Aug. 2022): Submissions have now closed.

2020 saw cultural heritage organisations produce a multitude of digital responses to events such as the Covid-19 pandemic, the Black Lives Matter movement, and the ongoing climate crisis (some of which were presented at our 2020 conference).

Two years on, what is the legacy of these digital interventions? Has the disruption to visiting a physical space resulted in embedding long-term digital initiatives that have persisted following reopening, or have they been abandoned in a bid to recreate the ‘old normal’?

Our 2022 conference seeks to discuss the varying situations and strategies across institutions, sharing best practices for digital futures, telling cautionary tales, and situating digital cultural heritage within the wider political and financial landscape.

The MCG’s Museums+Tech 2022 conference seeks proposals for presentations addressing these issues. It’s time to celebrate good work, and share ideas for helping museums and other cultural institutions do better. We’re open to suggestions, but topics might include:

• What does ‘digital’ mean to the museum of 2022?
• How have user needs changed and how have museums responded?
• What were the successes and, perhaps more importantly, failures from the digital interventions of 2020 (and how do we evaluate success/failure)?
  • How can we learn from them?

• What can museums learn from other sectors, e.g. environment, or health and wellbeing?
• How can museums work effectively and sustainably with external agencies?
• How can museum professionals most effectively be equipped with digital skills (and what can be done to keep them in the sector)?
• Where is the money coming from, what is (and isn’t) being funded, (how) have funding models changed, and how does this affect our digital priorities?
• How have long-term digital strategies been affected by the events of 2020?
  • What actions have museums taken to address funding cuts and how have they impacted digital initiatives?
  • How do you balance short-term projects with solving long-term problems, and what are the implications?
• How can we ensure preservation and sustainability, and what human and technological resources are required to make these a reality?

The MCG’s annual conference attracts speakers and participants from some of the most innovative cultural organisations, agencies and university programmes in the world. We’re keen to hear from practitioners, researchers, funders, and those from related cultural heritage and technology sectors. All submitted papers will be reviewed by experts in the field.

Presentations

This year, we will be hosting a hybrid conference. The programme will include:

• Short presentations (10 minutes + Q&A) are a great way to share the main learning points from a topic or project
• Lightning talks (5 minutes + Q&A) are best for sharing useful ideas that others in the sector can try, or to present a provocation

Please note that we may group these presentations into panels with a discussion component.

Our audiences love our mixture of old and new voices, and we have a great track record in presenting a diverse range of speakers. We can also provide some bursaries for speakers who would benefit from assistance with funds for travel, childcare etc. Please also read our Guidance for Speakers before submitting your proposal. Our events have a code of conduct designed to help everyone enjoy the event.

Submission details

Proposals will need to note preferred format and include: 

• a title and brief abstract (200 words max)
• a biography (150 words max) for the presenting author
• a brief (one or two sentences) non-technical summary of what attendees will learn from the presentation
• a brief (one or two sentences) explanation of how the paper relates to the conference themes

We will also ask whether the paper or project has been presented at any previous conferences, and we encourage potential speakers to share links to their videos, slides, blogs etc to help us get a sense of their presentation style.

Proposals deadline

The deadline for proposals is 23:59 (UK time) on Friday 12 August. If you have any questions about submitting a proposal, please contact us at contact@museumscomputergroup.org.uk.

The post MCG Museums+Tech 2022 — Turning it off and on again: Museums and the ‘new’ normal (Call for Proposals) appeared first on Museums Computer Group.

Update (21 Sep. 2021): Submissions have now closed.

Data, information, statistics. For better or worse they are part and parcel of our world, gathered and used as an influence in decision making, or in defence of a decision made. The pandemic has probably been the most data rich epidemic in human history, and we are all familiar with how the reading of it altered throughout. The collection and use of data is itself not neutral, and can be used to fight causes. Our own museum world is awash with data, and that is increasingly becoming ‘joined up’ with moves such as ‘Towards a National Collection’. Collections of data in themselves can be regarded as collections in their own right, rather than data about something else. 

With these perennial questions about data, combined with the increasing scrutiny of data and shift in how museums may identify themselves and their audiences after the pandemic, this year’s conference is calling to discuss our relationship with data. We want to talk about how our sector is using it, what insights it has brought to our work, and how to use it. We are interested in the collection and curation aspects, how it affects interpretation and communication. 

What does and what can our data tell us about our museums (good and bad), what are the opportunities and what are the pitfalls?

The MCG’s Museums+Tech 2020 virtual conference seeks proposals for presentations addressing these issues. It’s time to celebrate good work, and share ideas for helping museums and other cultural institutions do better. We’re open to suggestions, but topics might include:

• What different types of data do you collect and own about your organisation, collections and audiences, and how do you use it?
• What stories does your data tell? What does it hide?
• What is our relationship to data, and the notion of technocrats in museums?
• How can we help each other use data to bring about change in our organisations, e.g. decolonisation?
• What sensitivities lie around data in the cultural sector, e.g. the impact of data collection on user trust?
• What has data shown about the projects your organisation has embarked on and how can it inform or support future digital initiatives?
• Building communities with organisations and individual users on a national and international level, e.g. collaborating and crowdsourcing
• How can data from different organisations be integrated, and is this always desirable?
• Using, remixing and visualising big and small data
• Datasets as born-digital collection objects

The MCG’s annual conference attracts speakers and participants from some of the most innovative cultural organisations, agencies and university programmes in the world. We’re keen to hear from practitioners, researchers, funders, and those from related cultural heritage and technology sectors. All submitted papers will be reviewed by experts in the field.

Presentations

The conference this year will be hosted remotely. The programme will include:

• Short presentations (10 minutes + Q&A) are a great way to share the main learning points from a topic or project
• Lightning talks (5 minutes + Q&A) are best for sharing useful ideas that others in the sector can try, or to present a provocation

Please note that we may group these presentations into panels with a discussion component. We will also include themed breakout groups, to be arranged closer to the conference.

Our audiences love our mixture of old and new voices, and we have a great track record in presenting a diverse range of speakers. We can also provide some bursaries for speakers who would benefit from assistance with funds for travel, childcare etc. Please also read our Guidance for Speakers before submitting your proposal. Our events have a code of conduct designed to help everyone enjoy the event.

Submission details

Proposals will need to note preferred format and include: 

• a title and brief abstract (200 words max)
• a biography (150 words max) for the presenting author
• a brief (one or two sentences) non-technical summary of what attendees will learn from the presentation
• a brief (one or two sentences) explanation of how the paper relates to the conference themes

We will also ask whether the paper or project has been presented at any previous conferences, and we encourage potential speakers to share links to their videos, slides, blogs etc to help us get a sense of their presentation style.

Proposals deadline extended

The deadline for proposals is 23:59 on the 20th September. If you have any questions about submitting a proposal, please contact us at contact@museumscomputergroup.org.uk.

The post MCG Museums+Tech 2021: Data Tales appeared first on Museums Computer Group.

Apologies for absence 

Adriana Rouanet, Brian Moss, Michael Guthrie

Minutes of the last AGM 

Minutes of the last AGM: the British Library, October 2019 

Committee reports 

Committee reports were presented to the attendees. 

Chair’s report – Dafydd James 

We have been meeting when possible, as an Exec, as team leads and as a full Committee. It’s not easy to find a time for Committee meetings that fit around everyone’s commitments. Lockdown has, in many cases, increased the workload for our Committee members, which means we must be flexible enough to acknowledge the busy periods so that we can benefit from their excellent work and experience in the run up to key events and activities. 

Unfortunately, due to COVID-19, it’s not been possible to meet face-to-face, which is a part of the work that I really enjoy. That said, we are a committee with members across the UK, so we are used to conducting meetings over digital platforms and seeing each other in 2D!  

The Committee’s workstreams are now established, covering the different areas of the MCG’s work. Whilst we will lose some of our team this year, I hope that this approach will help the new committee members pick up tasks and get involved in our work. 

This year’s event is the first conducted solely online. I am grateful for the efforts of the team in building a new approach for us, one that I hope we can continue to benefit from over the coming years. I am also grateful to our international Programme Committee for their time reviewing a very successful call for papers, a reflection of how this year’s theme has struck a chord.  

I’d like to thank those that are leaving the Committee this year. They have been committed to the UK Museums and have worked hard for us and our community of practice: 

A big thank you to Rebecca, Claudia, Brian and Adriana, who have supported the delivery of our events and the running of the Museum’s Computer Group.  

I am pleased to say that we continue to have a strong team and a number of excellent nominees for the next year. This ensures that the MCG is dedicated to ensuring that our museums and technology community is connected, supported and inspired. 

All payment for MuseTech19 has now come in 

Accounts – Georgina Brooke 

Our current bank balance is £5,070.39. In PayPal we have £6,065.76 

Our main expenditure that has come out of our account this year was ExOrdo: £1,845 

We have also committed to subtitling from StageText at £1,680.00, they will send an invoice after the event.  

That will bring our balance to £9,474 (plus whatever extra will still come in from ticket fees). 

Will defer to Sarah Cold for final revenue from conference. 

Membership – Sarah Middle 

51 new individual members have registered since the 2019 AGM. 

The total number of MCG members is 616. 

We have extended last year’s corporate memberships for 2020 and have no new corporate members. 

For 2020 MCG has 11 corporate members: 

• University of Cambridge Museums
• Amgueddfa Cymru – National Museum Wales
• System Simulation
• Haley Sharpe Design
• Culture24
• Weissman
• Imperial War Museums
• Science Museum Group
• V&A
• Wellcome Collection
• Luton Cultural Services Trust 

Operational reports 

Events – Sarah Cole 

The Museums+Tech 2019 conference was held at the British Library on Friday 18^th October 2019 and the theme was Openness. 

We sold 207/255 tickets on Eventbrite. 

Information about that event may be found at: 

——— 

The Museums+Tech 2020 conference is in progress. It is being held virtually on Hopin 9–10 December 2020. The theme is Museums in a Crisis. 

At the time of writing, there have been 450 ticket registrations on a pay-what-you-can model, with a 72.8% turnout. 

Information about this event may be found at: 

Communications – Alec Ward 

Twitter remains our most popular social media platform, with 5,356 followers (increase of 386 followers on last year). The platform continues to grow steadily, with an average of 30 new followers each month. 

We have also been using Facebook, this is predominantly to promote events. Our Facebook page currently sits at a healthy 1,107 followers – but this is an audience that we continue to build on each year. 

We’ve been using LinkedIn a bit more in the past year, mostly to promote our events and share the list discussion topics. This is also an audience we hope to expand on in the coming year. 

Finally, we continue to use the Discussion List to share events, news and opportunities. We also share these topics on Twitter to expand the discussions. 

We continue to use Mailchimp to publicise our events and, occasionally, news. 

Website – Liz McCarthy 

The MCG website (www.museumscomputergroup.org.uk) continues to operate as a home for events, reports and membership for the group.  

In the period 1 October 2019 – 30 September 2020, the website had:  

• 10,250 sessions (-11% on previous year)  
• 8,697 users (+ 4% on previous year)  
• 16,978 views (-13% on previous year)  

The slight drop in page views and sessions can be assumed to be because 2020 conference wasn’t promoted within this window. 

Email list – Dafydd James 

The discussion list has been as busy as ever throughout lockdown, with 1853 subscribers who work with and within the sector. There have been lively discussions on the delivery of content and technology in our spaces and online, opportunities for training and career progression, funding and development, and accessibility and inclusion.  

In terms of moderation, there has not been a need for flagging up many things, only one or two emails that were marketing commercial services. 

Questions from the floor 

None

Committee elections 

The following new committee members were confirmed:

• Graham Davies, National Museum Wales​
• Nick Higgett, De Montfort University​
• Mark Pajak, Bristol Culture​
• Russell Stearman, Joi Polloi​
• Foteini Valeonti, University College London

Close of meeting 

MCG Committee 2019 

The post AGM 2020 appeared first on Museums Computer Group.

Georgina Brooke – Digital Media Content Manager, National Museums Scotland

Georgina Brooke is Digital Media Content Manager at National Museums Scotland. She entered the museums sector when she took up a one-year contract job at the Ashmolean to project manage their new web site build and create all the content for it. She was subsequently hired by all the other museums under the Oxford University Group to do the same job (Oxford University Museum of Natural History, Pitt Rivers Museum, History of Science Museum as well as the Oxford Botanic Garden and Arboretum). Georgina has managed social media for the main University of Oxford channels (where she also set up the Instagram account in 2015) and also for the Oxford University Museum of Natural History. She initially entered the workforce for the digital agency Reading Room, where she worked in London and in Singapore for clients such as the British Portrait Gallery and the Government Digital Service.

Emilie Carruthers – Education Manager: Samsung Digital Learning Programme, British Museum

Emilie Carruthers works in digital learning at the British Museum and is part of the team who manages the Samsung Digital Discovery Centre. She has worked in digital teams across museums in the UK and  internationally.  She is interested in making museums genuinely positive places where people want to spend time and young people feel welcome.

Rafie Cecilia – PhD candidate, University College London

Rafie is a PhD candidate and Guest Lecturer at UCL. Her research project examines the embodied and digital museum experience of blind and partially sighted people. Rafie has extensive experience of working in museums, carrying out research projects, public speaking, coordinating public engagement activities and university teaching. She is an advocate for equality, social justice and sustainable change. Her work is in service of the idea that cultural heritage should be open and accessible to everyone in society, and she puts these principles into practice in concrete and sustainable ways.

As part of her work as an independent consultant and audience researcher, she collaborates with the British Museum (London), the Fitzwilliam Museum (University of Cambridge), the Wellcome Collection (London) and the Science Museum Group (London). She is a member of the Global Disability Innovation Hub, the Association of Critical Heritage Studies, and the founder of the Disability Innovation Research Society.

Paul Fabel – Initiator and Co-Founder, Guided

Guided is a cloud-based app which enables interactive and personal remote guided tours to heritage sites and museums. It is a #EUvsVIRUS hackathon winner (April 2020) and formed by a pan-European team working solely remotely – until today. Paul and his team strive to making culture accessible for everyone, everywhere.

Paul works as a programme specialist for world heritage at the German National Commission for UNESCO in Bonn, Germany. Prior to this, he was a fellow with the Mercator-Fellowship on International Affairs with the German Foreign Office, focusing on illicit trafficking of cultural property and worked for UNESCO’s illicit trafficking programme in Paris, France. Paul majored in international relations and cultural heritage law.

Sophie Frost & Lauren Vargas – Research Associates, University of Leicester

Dr Sophie Frost is an interdisciplinary scholar of Visual Culture, Creative Industries and Museum Studies. She is Research Fellow on the AHRC ‘One by One UK-US’ project, led by the School of Museum Studies at University of Leicester. Sophie lectures on the BA Creative and Cultural Industries course at Kingston University and King’s College London’s MA Education in Arts and Cultural Settings. Sophie also works as a consultant for several arts and heritage organisations, including Southbank Centre, Freelands Foundation and Greenham Control Tower. 

By day, Dr Lauren ‘L’ Vargas is a digital dragon wrangler with 20 years of experience assisting organizations with their community and communication strategies. Vargas is an independent researcher and consultant of Your Digital Tattoo, as well as, a ‘One by One’ Research Associate with the University of Leicester – delivering a “practical approach to building digital literacies within specific museum contexts” for UK and US museums.

John Glancy – Executive Producer (Schools and Familes), Imperial War Museums

John Glancy is an Executive Producer within Public Engagement and Learning at Imperial War Museums. Previous to this John worked primarily in theatre creative learning which included periods as Head of Creative Learning at the Royal Lyceum in Edinburgh and Schools Producer for the Lyric Hammersmith. 

John is a native of the Port of Leith in Scotland but now resides in Manchester with his partner and their soon to be born first child. He is passionate about access to culture and history. He is also an unashamed fan of professional wrestling and zombie fiction.

Amy Hondsmerk – PhD candidate, Nottingham Trent University

Amy is a PhD researcher exploring the intersection of museums, videogames, and interpretation, based at Nottingham Trent University. She has previously gained a BA in History at the University of Nottingham, before shifting focus to museum studies for her MA, which she studied at Nottingham Trent University.

Amy also works freelance for a heritage consultancy and has experience working with a large range of museums and heritage sites. Her primary interests outside of interpretation are in creative outreach and engagment, with a focus on digital tools. She spends much of her free time playing videogames.

Chris How – Principal UX Consultant, Clearleft

Chris is a Principal UX Consultant at Clearleft, an award-winning digital design consultancy based in Brighton, UK. He helps clients create meaningful audience centered digital products and services through design leadership, strategic thinking and robust research.

Chris has delivered many large scale public engagement projects for Museums including The Met and Whitney in New York and The British Library, Tate and the Science Museum in the UK. He has had the pleasure to speak at MuseumNext and Museums and the Web.

Chris will be joined for the Q&A by Emma Mulliner, Product Manager, Digital Services, Natural History Museum.

Shereen Hunte – Learning Officer, Jewish Museum London

Shereen Hunte is a Learning Officer at the Jewish Museum London. Over the past three years, she has been responsible for teaching and developing school workshops, organising internships and voluntary placements and co-curating community exhibitions.  Hunte has played a key role in growing the Black History Programme from Black History Month tours to regular virtual tours, an exhibition and school workshops. She has also been responsible for coordinating the Museum’s Digital Programme, including podcasts and the museum’s online Learning Portal. 

During lockdown, along with the rest of the museum team, Shereen has been delivering virtual Object Talks, Family Activities and Tours.

Alix Geddes – Digital Analyst, One Further

Alix Geddes is a Digital Analyst at One Further and holds a Master’s degree in Museum Studies from the University of St Andrews. She is passionate about digital preservation and how museums can make use of digital technologies.

At One Further, Alix works with clients such as the British Museum, Tate and the V&A, helping them to understand and improve the performance of their websites and digital content

Bridget McKenzie – Director, Climate Museum UK

Bridget McKenzie is a researcher and creative curator in culture, learning and environment. She has been director of Flow Associates since 2006, after 14 years in roles such as Education Officer for Tate and Head of Learning at the British Library. Research projects have included feasibility studies into joined-up digital collections, digital strategies for national cultural funders and heritage bodies, and evaluations of educational and digital programmes. She is an advisor for Culture Unstained and co-founder of Culture Declares Emergency, a movement of artists and cultural organisations declaring climate and ecological emergency. She presents and publishes internationally on the possibilities of Regenerative Culture and the role of museums in facing crisis. She is founding director of Climate Museum UK, a new CIC which stirs and collects the emerging response to the Earth crisis.

Follow Bridget on Twitter @bridgetmck or visit Bridget’s website.

Becki Morris – Director and Associate Consultant, Disability Collaborative Network and EMBED

Since 2015, Becki created and founded the Disability Collaborative Network which in 2018 became a CIC. DCN creates and supports the Heritage Sector through identifying barriers, creating solutions and positive action to empower staff and organisations to create intersectional inclusive practice within the Heritage and Arts sector.

Becki is a trustee of AchieveAbility and Stage Text. Becki was a member of the Advisory Board for Universal Music UK Creative Differences: A handbook for embracing neurodiversity in the creative industries and has contributed to publications on good practice in the workplace for neurodiverse people.

In 2020, DCN became a partner of EMBED, a unique cross-sector partnership to support the heritage sector in key skills and learning to develop a fresh approach to diverse museums and heritage organisations on their inclusion journey through the user experience, working practice and workforce.

Jo Morrison, Calcium

Jo operates at the intersection of research, design and enterprise. Focusing on digital innovation and multidisciplinary collaboration, she aims to create more pleasurable, sustainable and citizen-centred environments through digital placemaking practices. Jo works across sectors, including the built environment, creative industries, culture and education.

Jo is a leadership member of the Association of Collaborative Design, fellow of the Institute of Place Management, fellow of the HEA, Industry Champion for the Creative Industries Policy and Evidence Centre, Digital Placemaking Consultant for the Bristol+Bath Creative R&D the and her PhD centres on hybrid practices for the design of interactive objects situated in the public realm.

Carlyn Osborne – Digital Collections Specialist, Library of Congress; Lauren Algee – Senior Innovation Specialist, Library of Congress

Carlyn Osborn is a Digital Collections Specialist at the Library of Congress, where she serves as a Community Manager for the By the People program. She has degrees from the University of Maryland and the Johns Hopkins University and is interested in crowdsourced cultural heritage, audience development, and digital engagement. She lives in Washington, DC.

Lauren Algee is a Senior Innovation Specialist at the Library of Congress, where she serves as a Community Manager for By the People. She previously led digital collections at DC Public Library, Special Collections and was an archivist at the US National Gallery of Art. Lauren is interested in public history and democratisation of knowledge. 

Mark Pajak – Head of Digital, Bristol Culture

Mark Pajak is the digital lead for Bristol Culture, managing technology online and on-site across five museums and Bristol Archives. Mark has a background in Natural Sciences, collections management and CRM analytics and has worked in a range of museum roles in Exeter and Bristol including being a volunteer, documentation officer and curator. Mark has been working to improve how Bristol Culture collects, uses and shares data about performance, putting user research at the forefront of all projects. Through the application of their digital principles the Bristol Culture has undergone an extensive digital transformation over the last five years.

Richard Palmer – Technical Leader, V&A; Joseph Padfield, Conservation Scientist, National Gallery

Richard Palmer is the Technical Lead for the Digital Media & Publishing department at the Victoria & Albert Museum. The department maintains the web estate for the museum, and participates in projects advancing web and museum sector digital standards, with a current focus on interoperability of collections data through linked data.

Joseph Padfield is a Conservation Scientist at the National Gallery. His work encompasses the fields of preventive conservation, colour science, conservation documentation, technical examination of paintings, generating/sharing digital images, image processing, web development, data management and integration systems development, database development, open‐linked data, RDF triple stores and the semantic web.

Kate Rolfe – Founding Director, The Revels Office; Marco Savo – Magazine Director, Audiovisual City

Kate Rolfe is Founding Director of The Revels Office, a commercial and audience development consultancy that aims to empower cultural organisations to generate new revenue and reach new audiences. Kate has held management roles in commercial departments at major UK institutions. Recent clients of The Revels Office and its network of consultants include UK Crafts Council, V&A Dundee, National Museum Wales, Arts Council Wales, Southwark Council, and Battersea Arts Centre – www.therevelsoffice.co.uk.

Marco Savo is Magazine Director of Audiovisual City, a digital magazine that promotes and supports audiovisual artists and events worldwide. 

Sian Shaw – Digital Learning Manager, Westminster Abbey

Sian Shaw is the Digital Learning Manager at Westminster Abbey. Since August 2019, she has developed a digital learning programme from scratch for the 1,000-year-old church, which is designed to help students, teachers and families engage with the Abbey, regardless of their location. Sian has previously worked as a Web Content Developer for the British Library Learning Team and in a number of roles at TES Global, including Content Producer and Ecommerce Manager. Sian is on the DLNET committee and volunteers as a GEM mentor, as part of a personal mission to help colleagues in the sector improve their digital literacy and build digital confidence.

Martin Spellerberg & Grace Pool – Principal & Researcher, Spellerberg Associates

Presenter Marty Spellerberg is principal at Spellerberg Associates, which provides consulting to artists, museums, and cultural institutions. He has been designing and developing websites in the arts and culture space since the 1990s. He has specifically focused on digital projects for museums for more than a decade. He is director of Spellerberg Projects, a contemporary art project space in rural Texas.

Co-author Grace Pool is a researcher at Spellerberg Associates. She has worked at MoMA and the Brooklyn Museum. She holds an MS in Museums and Digital Culture from Pratt University, New York.

Gavin Willshaw – Digitisation and Digital Engagement Manager, University of Edinburgh; Sara Thomas, Scotland Programme Coordinator, Wikimedia UK

Gavin Willshaw is the Digitisation and Digital Engagement Manager at the University of Edinburgh and was previously the Mass Digitisation Service Manager at the National Library of Scotland, where he led the Library’s Scottish Chapbook Wikisource project. At the University of Edinburgh he is responsible for the digitisation of and engagement with the Library’s rare and unique heritage collections.

Dr Sara Thomas is the Scotland Programme Coordinator for Wikimedia UK, and was previously Wikimedian in Residence for both Museums Galleries Scotland, and the Scottish Library and Information Council. 

Nathan Wilson – Head of Innovation, YourTour

Nathan Wilson is Head of Innovation at YourTour. Nathan’s background is in academic research and teaching. He studied engineering at Cambridge University (graduating with first class), spent a further 4 years as a postgraduate researcher at Warwick University (working in the field of sustainable water engineering) and supervises engineering students to this day.

Nathan has been working as an innovation lead within the computer software and technology startup industry for the past 5 years. He is highly skilled in business innovation, strategy and marketing and is responsible for designing customer research and interpreting the results, ensuring our projects have the maximum impact.

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